


secundus

by skuls



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Angst, F/M, Pre-IWTB
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-21
Updated: 2018-01-21
Packaged: 2019-03-07 19:23:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,509
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13441602
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skuls/pseuds/skuls
Summary: Mulder and Scully discuss wanting more kids.





	secundus

**Author's Note:**

> somewhat inspired by plus one, a few lines stolen from the bed scene.
> 
> so my headcanon for this subject has always been that it was hard for mulder and scully to talk about more children in the wake of william, and that the subject likely wouldn’t have come up unless there was a clear reason for them to need to talk about it because of grief/resentment on both sides. this is my interpretation of what would’ve brought that conversation on, and how it would fit into canon.

“Would you want more kids, Mulder?”

The voice comes from under the mound of blankets. Mulder rolls over, blinking the sleep out of his eyes, and sees Scully turned away from him on her side. He can barely see the top of her head under the comforter. Her voice is trembling, just a little.

He crawls across the mattress until he’s right behind her, wraps his arms around her tightly. She doesn’t pull away, the way she usually does when they talk about anything related to this subject. The way she does whenever the subject of William comes up. She leans back into him, her breaths trembling, her hair pressing into his nose. He kisses the back of her head. “I don’t know,” he mumbles. “I don't… I don’t know if I’d ever thought about it before.”

And he hasn’t, he really hasn’t. He’s barely thought about fatherhood in his life, outside of a few months with Diana, just before she left, and those years in between Scully asking him to be the father of her child and those first few months just after he found out William was gone.  They have certainly never talked about it, having another child, and this is likely because they can’t even talk about William. They don’t talk about him, because Scully’s face goes white and Mulder feels like he is going to throw up every time something reminds them of him. Their son. Their son, who Mulder walked away from, and who Scully let a stranger carry away. He is living with strangers now. Mulder doesn’t harbor resentment, but it is hard to think of anything but the missing space in their lives. Their son. It’s been years now, but they still can’t forget him.

“It’s hard to think about it,” Scully admits.

He cannot see her face, but he can understand her tone perfectly. She is trembling against him, curled up and tangled in his arms. She is sad and scared and this is a hard subject for them to talk about. He cradles her close, whispers to the back of her neck, “Do you want to have more kids?”

She takes an uncertain breath; he can feel it against his ribs. “I would've… liked to have another one,” she says uncertainly. Heavily. “Some time ago. I did consider it. I always thought I’d have more than one… before.” This could mean any number of things. Before she found out she couldn’t have children. Before she lost her daughter. Before the IVF failed. Before she lost their son.

“Well…” he tries softly, as gently as he can. “At the risk of sounding insensitive, what’s stopping us?” He knows the answer, but he needs to hear her say it. Needs to clear the air between them and pull everything out into the open. Needs them to try and understand each other. Needs to understand why she is bringing this up, perhaps.

She doesn’t answer. She sniffles. She is stiff in his arms, but she makes no move to pull away. “Scully?” he whispers, pushing long strands of hair back away from her face. “Scully, I’m sorry…”

“I’m late,” she says softly.

He goes as stiff as she is, astonishment coursing through him. Scully turns in his arms, burying her face in his chest. “You're… you’re what?” he whispers.

“I’m late,” she mumbles into his chest. “And I… I don’t know if it means I’m pregnant. I missed several periods in the years after my abduction, that’s why I didn’t know I was pregnant in Oregon…”

“Have you missed any since William?” he asks gently, nosing her hairline.

“No,” she admits, sniffling again. Her arms wrap hard around his ribs like vines, clinging. “Mulder, I can’t.  _We_  can’t. Not after William.”

He hugs her tighter, her arms and legs wrapped around his torso. “I know,” he says. “I know.”

“I gave him up,” Scully says into his t-shirt, and her words sound broken open, like she’s sobbing. “I did it to keep him safe, but… it’s like I threw him away, Mulder. Like I didn’t care.”

“You did it  _because_  you cared about him,” he whispers, but it’s hard to admit. In those dark moments after they went on the run, when he woke up reaching out for his son, when he woke up to Scully’s nightmares, to her hands against his chest, shoving him away, he’d blamed her, just a little. He’d hated her some nights, when he realized that he would never see his son again. He’d hated himself for walking away.

But in the end, he cannot hate her. He will not. She is all he has. And he left; he has no idea what it was like. Only what she’s told him, horror stories over their comforter that make him shudder from head to toe, go out and shoot everyone who has ever tried to hurt his son. They don’t know where their son is, but maybe that’s for the better. Wherever he is, maybe he’s safer.

“He is your son, Scully, and you did it because you loved him,” he says, and it is true. No matter how much he may resent her, it is true, and he knows this. He knows.

“I did it because I couldn’t keep him safe,” Scully says. Tears are running down her face, which she has hidden completely against his chest, and she has his shirt clutched in her fist. She tugs, though he can’t get any closer than he already is. “I couldn’t keep him safe, so I gave him away. He was a miracle I never even deserved in the first place, and I gave him up.” She sobs briefly, reaching up to wipe her eyes. Mulder blinks back tears of his own, reaching up to stroke her hair. “How am I supposed to bring another child into this world, Mulder?” she whispers. “How could we do this? How can we protect another child? What if they ask questions about their brother? What if we find William someday and he sees that we had another kid after we gave him up for adoption? What will he think? That we didn’t love him, that we didn’t care enough…”

“Shh,” he whispers, cupping the back of her head. He presses a kiss to her forehead. “Scully, it’s okay. We don’t know that you’re pregnant.”

“What if I am?” she whispers.

“Then we’ll deal with it,” he says. “We can… we can do whatever you need to do.” He doesn’t know if he could bear losing anyone else, but whatever Scully needs, whatever… “If you want…”

She’s shaking her head already. “I can’t give up another child, Mulder. I won’t. If I am pregnant, then… I’ll have the baby. And we’ll be parents.” She sniffles, breathing unsteadily. “Sometimes I think I still want to be a mother, Mulder,” she whispers. “I miss William so much.”

“I know,” he mutters into her hair. “I miss him, too. I never should’ve left you guys. I hate myself for it every single day.” And he does. He has apologized so many times. He’s looked himself in the mirror before, one morning when he cut himself shaving and realized in that hot moment of stinging pain that it was William’s birthday, looked himself in the mirror and told himself with blood running down his chin,  _It’s just as much your fault as hers, you know. You did this together._

How can someone like that be a father? How can he have another child and hope not to fail that child?

“I don’t want to replace him,” Scully says, pulling back to look at him. She reaches up, cupping his cheek in her hand. “I don’t. I can’t. If we had another baby, it wouldn’t be him. I miss him so much…” He kisses the side of her hand, and she shudders. “I don’t know if I want to be pregnant,” she says. “But if I am…”

“If you are,” he says. “If you are, we’ll get through it. And we’ll be parents.”

“We’ll be parents,” she murmurs. Her eyes are large and wet. She leans forward and kisses him, right on the corner of his mouth, before curling up against him, her nose against his shoulder.

His stomach hurts, his head spinning as he tries to process it all. He thinks of his son sleeping against his chest, his little hand curled around Scully’s finger. He thinks of Scully sitting beside him after he came back from the dead, the baby kicking under his hand. His astonishment at being a father. His son is still out there somewhere. He strokes back her hair with his thumbs. “I love you,” he mumbles, stroking the side of her face. “We’re going to get through this. No matter what it is.”

Scully reaches for his hand, her eyes half-closed. “I love you, too,” she whispers. 

Mulder smoothes her cheekbone with the flat of his thumb. “We’ll be okay,” he whispers, closes his eyes and really, really tries to believe it.


End file.
